Do NOT rent a server. Here's everything it lacks.

I went ahead and bought a 7 day server to go ahead and test my suspicions about rent-a-server. I had my expectations a bit high, hoping DICE/EA would remember the success of rent-a-server in BF3 and would learn from their mistakes and bad implementation in BF4. Boy was I wrong, it's even worse now.

> You can only add up to 6 maps in a rotation. There should not be a limit (or at least one so high it would allow every map from every DLC to be played on it at least once).
> There is no ban list. You cannot ban players from your server, whether you're in the game or not. This is by far the most important feature of rent-a-server as means of removing the toxic players that constantly sabotage a team by driving vehicles right to the enemy spawn, battle taxi, or just outright destroy team vehicles. The people that stand in front of field guns and AAs because someone else got there first, that type of stuff.
> There is no in-game server menu. You cannot choose the next map, kick players, or balance teams in-game (or out, for that matter).
> You cannot disable "skill-based" autobalance.
> You cannot see a list of players in your own server unless you are in the game.
> Any edits made to the server as all such as reducing respawn times or increasing ticket count will label the server with a big "CUSTOM" sign. I could understand this for something so big as changing bullet damage, but respawn times are a bit excessive.
> In addition to that, you can only choose set values for these at 50%, 100%, and 200%. You cannot write in 500%, 0%, 750%, etc.
> There is no way to remove a specific weapon, only the type of weapon, and gadgets cannot be removed. This is necessary in case of any mishaps such as the previous M26 dart glitch in BF3, or the USAS-12 frag rounds being blatantly overpowered around the launch of BF3.
> "Land Vehicles" and "Air Vehicles" are the only options for removing vehicles. YOU CANNOT REMOVE THE BEHEMOTH OR CHANGE THE BEHEMOTH SPAWN RULES OR ANYTHING OF THAT SORT. In addition, you cannot disable a specific vehicle.
> You cannot reserve slots for yourself, admins, or VIPs.
> Not to mention you cannot set anyone as an admin.
> Not to mention you have no admin privileges even though you rented the server.

Seriously, this is absurd and a complete let-down. This game has been a big let down to me already in terms of server balancing, always moving me and my squad to the enemy team after every win to the point where I have stopped playing this game since OCTOBER. I figured rent-a-server would be a great way to keep games balanced, as every game my friends and I have been screwed onto a team of idiots and forced to attempt to carry against a competent team. That is NOT fun.

Here's the BARE MINIMUM of what needs to happen for server rental to be worthwhile:

> Quickmatch must matchmake players into ANY ranked rented server, not just ones that are entirely unedited. Only exceptions would be servers that completely change gameplay such as sniper/pistol only, or if health or bullet damage are changed.
> Editing the server should not change it from ranked to "CUSTOM" unless it's an entire gameplay change such as snipers only.
> In-game server options; including switching any player to either team, kicking any player, and banning any player.
> Increase the map rotation cap to at least 30 maps.
> Ability to set players as admins from the server menu from outside of the server.
> Ability to ban specific players by writing them in from outside of the server.
> Ability to disable the behemoth.

That's just the bare minimum to make it worthwhile to pick up a server. There's plenty more it needs than that.

> Ability to write kick/ban/balance presets when when editing a player in-game so it shows them a message as to why they were teamswitched, kicked, or banned. ei: "Kicked: Destroying team vehicles is not allowed."
> Ability to change the values on the behemoth so it spawns more/less frequently, such as changing how many tickets need to be between the two teams for it to spawn and the minimum amount of time/tickets to have passed before the behemoth can spawn.
> Ability to disable SPECIFIC (not just the type) weapons/vehicles/equipment from being used in the server without putting a "CUSTOM" preset marker on the server unless it restricts everything to only use one type of weapon. (Reasons such as people abusing landmines not having a cooldown so you can place all 3 at once and shoot them to OHK anything (pretty sure it was fixed with this update))
> Ability to make players VIPs so that they will be moved to the front of the queue in front of any other premium and nonpremium players. This includes both admins and VIPs to have priority access to their own server. Makes sense, doesn't it?
> Ability to set a server banner.
> Ability to disable "skill-based" balancing, since it's the most absurd thing in all of Battlefield apart from this blasphemy of rent a server.
> Ability to override the next map to play a specific map next.
> Ability to entirely customize anything that has a timer rather than using preset values at 50%, 100%, and 200%. Respawn times should be able to be set to 0%, 25%, 75%, etc at the very least. Tickets should be able to be changed to literally anything. Let people make it 666% if they want it. It shouldn't be hard to just make it a percentage slider in increments of 1%.
> Ability to make a server private and password-locked (important for clans I'm sure)

A final note: Rent-a-server was supposed to push consoles towards having the likes of PC 3rd party servers. Instead, you've completely stepped in the wrong direction and neutered console rent-a-server and forcing it on PC players entirely. What should've happened is finding a way to get console 3rd party servers and the ability to use rcon and all. Stop trying to "protect" the crappy playerbase that no one likes and will give this game up in 3 months because they're too stupid to put down their sniper to get a better score and PTFO.

I may have forgotten something, feel free to add your feedback as a comment and if I forgot something necessary I will add it to the OP. Please share this around and keep this thread alive so we can get an official response from staff. For now, I advise everyone to NOT RENT A SERVER. It is not worth it at all.

Quickmatch must matchmake players into ANY ranked rented server, not just ones that are entirely unedited. Only exceptions would be servers that completely change gameplay such as sniper/pistol only, or if health or bullet damage are changed.

# Ranked servers with no changes should allow quick match/matchmaking. Servers that do have changes (meaning ANY) should not. Matchmaking should imply a uniform experience. Not a crapshoot roll of the dice. Personally I think Quick Match should use server filters.

Kick/Ban/Team switch is being developed. As well as a lot of other customisation.

The biggest dissapointment atm is that we want to play ranked "medic only" or handguns only" or "no elite classes" etc, but the smallest change will make it pointless to play, you wont rank, your stats not affected etc.

I agree that BF3's rent-a-server program was very good. Just make a copy of that and allow us to do more. Why limit everything... They always tend to do this. Squad join in BF3 was really good, BF4 didnt even had one during release and after a long time they added squad join beta, i just dont get it...

Bravo, well said! I couldn't agree with you more on all accounts. They had it right with BF3. My clan rented a server for 1.5 years until BF4 came out. The inability to move players (keep friends/clan on same team) and kick/ban abusers is easily a deal-breaker for many would-be renters.

For Battlefield 3, they did not release rental servers until a full 8 months after the game was released. Doing so early here seems like they are trying to make a cash grab before things are fully ready.

For Battlefield 3, they did not release rental servers until a full 8 months after the game was released. Doing so early here seems like they are trying to make a cash grab before things are fully ready.

You need to be clear about the platform you're speaking for, so to not spread misinformation. PC has always had server rental AND all presets day one...outside of BF1 of course.

These rent options fall way too short of what is needed by the people who have purchased this game .. no point mentioning the comments by GrowlmonDrgnbutt as he has gotten most of it . but there is a lot more.
we ( xtremeidiots) have supported the BF series and on top of 400 members we had, we got up to and over 600 not including the 6000+ site members . we have a structured admin base and our rules are based around fair play no abuse or hacking .
This is not good enough